I found an issue, where an internal library error (referencing lib) is raised and not wrapped in a ValidationError. Also this exception logs the whole of the openapi spec which is not ideal for a really large spec.
The internal ValidationError exception is raised instead of the internal library one.
Here is minimal openapi spec to reproduce the issue.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/referencing/_core.py", line 276, in pointer
contents = contents[segment] # type: ignore[reportUnknownArgumentType]
~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^
KeyError: 'InvalidReference'
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/main.py", line 6, in <module>
validate(spec_dict)
~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/shortcuts.py", line 55, in validate
return v.validate()
~~~~~~~~~~^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/validators.py", line 72, in validate
for err in self.iter_errors():
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/caches.py", line 61, in __next__
item = next(self.parent)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/caches.py", line 30, in __next__
item = next(self.iter)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/decorators.py", line 28, in wrapper
for err in errors:
^^^^^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/validators.py", line 93, in iter_errors
yield from self.root_validator(self.schema_path)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/keywords.py", line 721, in __call__
yield from self.paths_validator(paths)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/keywords.py", line 631, in __call__
yield from self.path_validator(url, path_item)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/keywords.py", line 588, in __call__
yield from self.operation_validator(
url, field_name, operation, parameters
)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/keywords.py", line 515, in __call__
yield from self.responses_validator(responses)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/keywords.py", line 475, in __call__
yield from self.response_validator(response_code, response)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/openapi_spec_validator/validation/keywords.py", line 462, in __call__
if "content" in response:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/pathable/paths.py", line 524, in __contains__
return self.accessor.contains(self.parts, key)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/jsonschema_path/accessors.py", line 178, in contains
node = self[parts]
~~~~^^^^^^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/jsonschema_path/accessors.py", line 129, in __getitem__
resolved = self.get_resolved(parts)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/jsonschema_path/accessors.py", line 239, in get_resolved
result = self._path_resolver.resolve(self.node, parts)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/jsonschema_path/resolvers.py", line 34, in resolve
resolved = self._resolve_with_prefix_cache(node, parts)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/jsonschema_path/resolvers.py", line 80, in _resolve_with_prefix_cache
resolved_schema = SchemaNode._resolve_node(
current_node,
current_resolver,
)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/jsonschema_path/nodes.py", line 24, in _resolve_node
resolved = resolver.lookup(ref)
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/referencing/_core.py", line 690, in lookup
return retrieved.value.pointer(pointer=fragment, resolver=resolver)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/user/repro/schema_validation/.venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/referencing/_core.py", line 279, in pointer
raise error from lookup_error
referencing.exceptions.PointerToNowhere: '/components/responses/InvalidReference' does not exist within {'openapi': '3.0.0', 'info': {'title': 'Trigger unhandled exception', 'version': '1.0.0', 'description': 'This is a minimal openapi config to trigger referencing.exceptions.PointerToNowhere exception this should be handled by the openapi_spec_validator but it is not'}, 'servers': [{'url': 'http://petstore.swagger.io/api'}], 'paths': {'/pets': {'get': {'responses': {'200': {'description': 'pet response'}, '401': {'$ref': '#/components/responses/InvalidReference'}, '5XX': {'$ref': '#/components/responses/APIError'}}}}}, 'components': {'responses': {'APIError': {'description': 'An error occurred interacting with the API.', 'content': {'application/json': {'schema': {'$ref': '#/components/schemas/APIError'}}}}}}}
annotated-types==0.7.0
attrs==26.1.0
jsonschema==4.26.0
jsonschema-path==0.5.0
jsonschema-specifications==2025.9.1
lazy-object-proxy==1.12.0
openapi-schema-validator==0.9.0
openapi-spec-validator==0.9.0
pathable==0.6.0
pydantic==2.13.4
pydantic-core==2.46.4
pydantic-settings==2.14.1
python-dotenv==1.2.2
pyyaml==6.0.3
referencing==0.37.0
rfc3339-validator==0.1.4
rpds-py==2026.5.1
six==1.17.0
typing-extensions==4.15.0
typing-inspection==0.4.2
Hello, thank you for maintaining this project!
Description
I found an issue, where an internal library error (referencing lib) is raised and not wrapped in a ValidationError. Also this exception logs the whole of the openapi spec which is not ideal for a really large spec.
Expected behavior
The internal ValidationError exception is raised instead of the internal library one.
Steps to Reproduce
Here is minimal openapi spec to reproduce the issue.
Raised exception output
Environment
python --version) : Python 3.14.4uv pip freeze):